Head and Shoulders
by The USS Ficcelsior
Summary: Hey did you guys see that Metroid Prime 4 trailer?


" _And, Bob, remember: You are my number one guy."_

\- The Joker, _Batman_ (1989)

" _It is not the lash they fear, it is my divine power. But I am a generous god. I can make you rich beyond all measure. I will make you warlord of all Greece. You will carry my battle standard to the heart of Europa. Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet, if you will but kneel at mine."_

\- Xerxes, _300_

* * *

The army of Zofia stood in formation on the training grounds. Alm stood at the head of a command platform with Celica standing close guard behind him. The soldiers were preparing to make a decisive strike against the pagan war god Atlas.

The sorcerer deity was dormant. Several days ago, Celica had pilgrimaged alone to the foreboding cavern temple of Atlas to confront him at the source. The full account of what had transpired between the savage, merciless immortal brute and the gentle, virtuous knight-priestess remained a secret known only between the two, but when Celica returned to Zofia in the morning, it was clear she had performed a successful purity ritual and dealt a crippling blow to Atlas's power. The demon was temporarily being held at bay with the blessings of the goddess Mila, providing a small opening for a stronger force to swoop in and defeat him completely _—or so she claimed._

"Down with Atlas!" Lukas exclaimed from the crowd.

"Destroy the fraud!" shouted Boey.

"Let's end his schemes once and for all!" shouted Faye.

"Why did my mom name me after this moron?" asked the regular playable human Atlas.

Up on the platform, Alm valiantly raised his sword over his head.

"The threat of Atlas ends today!" he shouted to rouse the troops. The crowd cheered every time he finished a sentence. "We're going to charge straight into his den while he's at his weakest and send him back to the pit where he came from! We'll strike at him before he has a chance to seduce some hapless tavern wench into becoming his shrine whore! We'll show him history has no place for his kind and it's going to take more than some hag with a few cheap magic tricks to keep us mortals down! We'll stop this monster and his hideous worm bride in their tracks before they have a chance to counterattack! We'll send him plummeting back to the depths before he even knows we're coming for hi-"

The end of a narrow longsword burst out of Alm's chest and brought his speech to an abrupt conclusion. He stared down at his seeping wound more in shocked surprise than in pain. He looked behind and saw Celica glaring at him with a disapproving scowl in the corner of his blurring vision. Her arm was still outstretched from the killing thrust.

"Sorry," she giggled. Her eyes flickered faintly like cursed rosary beads. "I wasn't supposed to betray you until the campaign started, but then you had to go and start calling me mean names."

Alm's head lifelessly slumped forward. Celica pushed the impaled carcass off of her sword with the sole of her steel boot and calmly wiped the blood away with the velvet lining of her cape.

The air around Celica became rank with invisible nefarious purposes. Every member of the battalion gasped. Behind the noble-swordswoman-turned-ruthless-murderess, the demon god Atlas revealed his corporeal form. Twice the size of any mortal man, he was hovering behind Celica like a dark curtain.

His ancient hands were planted dominantly on Celica's shoulders. The callused demon hide of his palms was coiled around the soft pink tendons near her neck, grasping the naked collarbones in greedy handfuls, penetrating deep into the tender recesses of her sternum. His crooked nails dangled long and low until they just began to meet the boundary where her smooth clavicle ended and her creamy hillocks began their rise. If there were ever a way to make a simple pair of shoulders look scandalous and obscene, Celica had accomplished it in spectacular fashion.

"Can I purge all the heathens now, King Atlas? _Pleeeease?"_ She wiggled her shoulders in excited circles.

"Yes, deliver my vengeance," the demon mage thundered with centuries of pent up malice. "Wash your hands of this filthy ilk you once called your allies."

"My hands?" Celica blinked. "What about my shoulders?"

"Your shoulders will be tempered in the sweat of your rage and the tears of your adversaries." Atlas tightened his iron grip over Celica in a crude attempt at a trapezius massage. "They must grow strong and graceful. I carry the weight of the celestial heavens over mine. You shall carry the weight of all of the damned souls you send to Hell over yours." Atlas described this in a way that meant Celica would become an invincible war goddess while keeping the same agile body shape, and not like those pictures of overmuscled beefcake shemales, because that would be totally gross.

"Celica, what madness has driven you to consort with this beast?" Mae said from the battle formation on the ground. "How have you fallen so low?"

Celica answered by shrugging. Suggestively. With her shoulders.

And then the massacre began. Atlas lifted his hands to cut his beautiful puppet loose from her strings. Celica vaulted down from the pulpit in a white flash of lightning. Atlas laughed maniacally. Celica killed everyone standing in her path with ruthless sword strikes, stopped to delicately relieve a knot in the base of her neck, and killed some more. The blood of slaughtered heroes baptized her chaste white armor in red and flowed through her rose-tinted hair, covering her shoulders in a fine crimson veil.


End file.
